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I'm not American, so I don't know how this works, but would it not be a good idea to fight lobbying with lobbying? Create a lobbying group, funded by a mix of

I'm not American, so I don't know how this works, but would it not be a good idea to fight lobbying with lobbying? Create a lobbying group, funded by a mix of regular people and businesses that push towards the ultimate aim of net neutrality being a part of national and international law. I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden. I imagine many more people would happily throw a few dollars for someone to do that on their behalf, even if it was a recurring thing ($5 a month).

falcolas 9y ago
To just equal Comcast's estimated lobbying budget of $20 million, it would require somewhere north of 300,000 people all contributing $5 a month. Given you'd also be fighting against Verizon, Google, Netflix, and any number of other companies, you'd probably need a member count close to a million to make anything resembling headway. A million members making reoccurring contributions is beyond what is realistic, IMO.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Google and Netflix are both pro-neutrality, not anti-; you'd be lobbying with rather than against them on this issue.
  - eropple 9y ago
    They are, until it benefits them not to be. It'll never benefit the consumer to go this way. Google and Netflix are allies of convenience at best.
  - rsynnott 9y ago
    They are currently, but there's an argument that incumbent giants would actually benefit from the end of net neutrality, as it would disproportionately disadvantage startups. So in the long term, don't bet on them staying on the same side.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      Neutrality advantages incumbents compared to startups on the content side, but not as much as it advantages ISPs over incumbent non-ISP content providers. There is not much that has driven Google over the past decade as much as preventing market power at other levels of the stack squeezing them out (it's why they've invested heavily in preventing anyone else from controlling either mobile OS or desktop browser market, and even taken on Windows in the consumer space with ChromeOS.)
  - falcolas 9y ago
    I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point. In fact, IIRC, they were explicitly questioned by some news outlets with the recent kerfluffel and their responses boiled down to "it will all be OK". Frankly, given their market positions, Google and Netflix only stand to win with anti-NN. Google's Public Policy blog [0] seems to back up the no comment stance - their last comment is from 2010, dating back to the orignal implementations. Wired's research [1] appears to back this up as well. And here's a Verge article on Netflix' opinion [2] that boils down to "it won't matter to us". Verbatum: Even if the formal framework gets weakened, we don’t see a big risk actualizing, because consumers know they’re entitled to getting all of the web services. [0] https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutrality https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutr... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neutrality-stances-timeline https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neut...
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point More recent coverage than your March article on Netflix: http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/ http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/ And Google's current (and thus, more recent than your 2015 article) action page on neutrality: https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.html https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.h...
      - falcolas 9y ago
        Note the lack of two companies on the "day of action" site Netflix supposedly supported? https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/ https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/ Still, good to see they're making statements in favor of NN. Action would be better.
LeifCarrotson 9y ago
> I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden. Contacting representatives is not what the lobbyists are selling. Neither is taking them to dinner and buying them a filet mignon. What they're selling over those dinners is future donations to their election campaign and future cushy jobs after they leave the bureaucracy and go into industry. A private PAC can't offer that. Some of these groups (like the NRA or AARP) can't offer as much in donations or future jobs, but they can offer a large group of voters, which has similar value to a donation to a campaign. The belief that what's needed is a person to talk to your representatives is naive.
- EnderMB 9y ago
  This is why I suggested donating to a "lobbying group" that is pro net neutrality, and is run by figure-heads that would always side with net neutrality. If Reddit is anything to go by, a lot of people are being asked to contact their representatives. For a number of people, it won't be their first time contacting a rep on this very issue, so it's clearly going to be an ongoing battle. If sponsorship is possible, not just from big companies but smaller ones that ultimately rely on a free internet, I think $20m is just about doable.
maxxxxx 9y ago
The problem with lobbying is that the people who can directly make money off their proposals have much bigger incentives to spend money on it than people who don't. So the telecoms will always have more money for it than consumers. Same for the medical system. Pharmaceutical have a lot more incentive to spend than people who want to save money.

falcolas 9y ago

To just equal Comcast's estimated lobbying budget of $20 million, it would require somewhere north of 300,000 people all contributing $5 a month. Given you'd also be fighting against Verizon, Google, Netflix, and any number of other companies, you'd probably need a member count close to a million to make anything resembling headway. A million members making reoccurring contributions is beyond what is realistic, IMO.

dragonwriter 9y ago
Google and Netflix are both pro-neutrality, not anti-; you'd be lobbying with rather than against them on this issue.
- eropple 9y ago
  They are, until it benefits them not to be. It'll never benefit the consumer to go this way. Google and Netflix are allies of convenience at best.
- rsynnott 9y ago
  They are currently, but there's an argument that incumbent giants would actually benefit from the end of net neutrality, as it would disproportionately disadvantage startups. So in the long term, don't bet on them staying on the same side.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Neutrality advantages incumbents compared to startups on the content side, but not as much as it advantages ISPs over incumbent non-ISP content providers. There is not much that has driven Google over the past decade as much as preventing market power at other levels of the stack squeezing them out (it's why they've invested heavily in preventing anyone else from controlling either mobile OS or desktop browser market, and even taken on Windows in the consumer space with ChromeOS.)
- falcolas 9y ago
  I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point. In fact, IIRC, they were explicitly questioned by some news outlets with the recent kerfluffel and their responses boiled down to "it will all be OK". Frankly, given their market positions, Google and Netflix only stand to win with anti-NN. Google's Public Policy blog [0] seems to back up the no comment stance - their last comment is from 2010, dating back to the orignal implementations. Wired's research [1] appears to back this up as well. And here's a Verge article on Netflix' opinion [2] that boils down to "it won't matter to us". Verbatum: Even if the formal framework gets weakened, we don’t see a big risk actualizing, because consumers know they’re entitled to getting all of the web services. [0] https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutrality https://publicpolicy.googleblog.com/search/label/Net%20Neutr... [1] https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ https://www.wired.com/2015/02/google-net-neutrality/ [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neutrality-stances-timeline https://www.theverge.com/2017/3/20/14960154/netflix-net-neut...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I've heard this, but I haven't seen recent statements to this point More recent coverage than your March article on Netflix: http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/ http://fortune.com/2017/06/15/netflix-net-neutrality-fcc/ And Google's current (and thus, more recent than your 2015 article) action page on neutrality: https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.html https://www.google.com/takeaction/action/freeandopen/index.h...
    - falcolas 9y ago
      Note the lack of two companies on the "day of action" site Netflix supposedly supported? https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/ https://www.battleforthenet.com/july12/ Still, good to see they're making statements in favor of NN. Action would be better.

LeifCarrotson 9y ago

> I think a lot of people are sick of having to contact their representatives, or don't do it because it's a burden. Contacting representatives is not what the lobbyists are selling. Neither is taking them to dinner and buying them a filet mignon. What they're selling over those dinners is future donations to their election campaign and future cushy jobs after they leave the bureaucracy and go into industry. A private PAC can't offer that. Some of these groups (like the NRA or AARP) can't offer as much in donations or future jobs, but they can offer a large group of voters, which has similar value to a donation to a campaign. The belief that what's needed is a person to talk to your representatives is naive.

EnderMB 9y ago
This is why I suggested donating to a "lobbying group" that is pro net neutrality, and is run by figure-heads that would always side with net neutrality. If Reddit is anything to go by, a lot of people are being asked to contact their representatives. For a number of people, it won't be their first time contacting a rep on this very issue, so it's clearly going to be an ongoing battle. If sponsorship is possible, not just from big companies but smaller ones that ultimately rely on a free internet, I think $20m is just about doable.

maxxxxx 9y ago

The problem with lobbying is that the people who can directly make money off their proposals have much bigger incentives to spend money on it than people who don't. So the telecoms will always have more money for it than consumers. Same for the medical system. Pharmaceutical have a lot more incentive to spend than people who want to save money.